Progressive House lawmakers have condemned Republicans for voting on Thursday to censure Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York), saying the move is little more than political theater after the recent scandals involving now-former Republican Rep. George Santos (New York).
On Thursday, the House voted 214 to 191 to censure Bowman, with three Democrats joining Republicans in voting “yes.” Republicans cited an incident in September when Bowman pulled the fire alarm in the U.S. Capitol office building, separate from the Capitol building, while the House was scrambling to pass a bill to narrowly avoid a government shutdown.
Bowman, who paid a fine for the incident, has said that it was a mistake — he was trying to exit doors that were normally open, and pulled the alarm thinking it would open the doors in his rush to get to the Capitol to cast his vote, he explained in an apology. His insistence that he wasn’t trying to obstruct the bill checks out; Bowman voted with nearly all of his fellow Democrats to pass the bill when the vote eventually resumed, having hardly been affected by the fire alarm at all.
In a debate on the House floor earlier this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said that the GOP was trying to paint over being “embarrassed” by Santos, who was expelled from Congress last Friday after House Ethics Committee investigators found that he “blatantly stole” from his campaign coffers. She said that Republicans were simply “grasping for straws” to find a progressive lawmaker to scapegoat after that debacle.
“Let me tell you what’s actually going on. New York Republicans are so embarrassed that they propped up George Santos, got him elected to office, and then had to turn around and vote to expel him, that they want to distract the entire world from their massive embarrassment,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “So they’ve decided to target one of the first Black men to ever represent Westchester County in the United States Congress for censure.”
“They’re wasting our time, they’re wasting our country’s time,” she said. “These arguments that are being made here — what’s next? Jaywalking? Do you want to get us for jaywalking, for now crossing the street correctly?”
Other progressive lawmakers have also condemned the vote, noting that Republicans have a track record of targeting non-white progressive lawmakers with smear campaigns.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) pointed out the absurdity of Republicans comparing Bowman to the far right militants who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Last month, Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, was censured for her support of Palestinian liberation in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Now you’re trying to shift the focus by baselessly attacking Rep. Bowman to score cheap political points — comparing him to the white supremacists on January 6th who were smashing windows in the Capitol, y’all, and screaming ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ Give me a break,” she said. “This is yet another attempt to silence a person of color in this chamber.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) echoed Tlaib, saying, “This censure is just the latest in this chamber’s shameful history of telling Black and brown folks they don’t belong in Congress.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy